I have been minutely exact in describing the details of this composition, because it will be useful as a key to many others of the early Tuscan school, both in sculpture and painting; for example, the fine bas-relief by Nanni over the south door of the Duomo at Florence, represents St. Thomas in the same manner kneeling outside the aureole and receiving the girdle; but the entombment below is omitted. These sculptures were executed at the time when the enthusiasm for the Sacratissima Cintola della Madonna prevailed throughout the length and breadth of Tuscany, and Prato had become a place of pilgrimage.
This story of the Girdle was one of the legends imported from the East. It had certainly a Greek origin;[1] and, according to the Greek formula, St. Thomas is to be figured apart in the clouds, on the right of the Virgin, and in the act of receiving the girdle. Such is the approved arrangement till the end of the fourteenth century; afterwards we find St. Thomas placed below among the other apostles.
[Footnote 1: It may be found in the Greek Menologium, iii. p. 225]
THE LEGEND OF THE HOLY GIRDLE.
An account of the Assumption would be imperfect without some notice
of the western legend, which relates the subsequent history of the
Girdle, and its arrival in Italy, as represented in the frescoes of
Agnolo Gaddi at Prato.[1]
[Footnote 1: Notizie istoriche intorno alla Sacratissima Cintola di Maria Vergine, che si conserva, nella Città di Prato, dal Dottore Giuseppe Bianchini di Prato, 1795.]
The chapel della Sacratissima Cintola was erected from the designs of Giovanni Pisano about 1320. This "most sacred" relic had long been deposited under the high altar of the principal chapel, and held in great veneration; but in the year 1312, a native of Prato, whose name was Musciatino, conceived the idea of carrying it off, and selling it in Florence. The attempt was discovered; the unhappy thief suffered a cruel death; and the people of Prato resolved to provide for the future custody of the precious relic a new and inviolable shrine.
The chapel is in the form of a parallelogram, three sides of which are painted, the other being separated from the choir by a bronze gate of most exquisite workmanship, designed by Ghiberti, or, as others say, by Brunelleschi, and executed partly by Simone Donatello.
On the wall, to the left as we enter, is a series of subjects from the Life of the Virgin, beginning, as usual, with the Rejection of Joachim from the temple, and ending with the Nativity of our Saviour.
The end of the chapel is filled up by the Assumption of the Virgin, the tomb being seen below, surrounded by the apostles; and above it the Virgin, as she floats into heaven, is in the act of loosening her girdle, which St. Thomas, devoutly kneeling, stretches out his arms to receive. Above this, a circular window exhibits, in stained glass, the Coronation of the Virgin, surrounded by a glory of angels.